Gordon Werner

Pilot feared plane carrying Aaliyah was overloaded

By Ken Kaye, Karla Schuster and John Holland
Sun-Sentinel

Published August 28 2001, 4:35 AM PDT

NASSAU, Bahamas -- R&B singer Aaliyah?s video crew was in such a rush to return to Florida Saturday that they demanded their charter plane pilot take off without checking the weight of their equipment -- even though the pilot was afraid the plane was dangerously overloaded, according to witness reports.

In addition, a South Florida freight company said it, too, was pressured by Aaliyah?s representatives to haul equipment to the Bahamas without a careful weight check, citing production schedules. But that company refused to give in.

In all, at least three people say they saw the plane being loaded with what they feared was too much weight, including a baggage handler who warned the pilot he was placing the flight in jeopardy.

U.S. and Bahamian accident investigators on Monday said they would look into these accounts, as well as whether the Cessna 402B lost power after taking off from Marsh Harbour. The plane crashed, killing all nine on board, including Aaliyah.

"Right now, it's too early to say what caused the crash, but we're certainly looking at excessive weight as a factor," said Leeland Russell, acting superintendent of the Abaco police.

Lewis Key, a Bahamian charter pilot, told the New York Post he overheard a dispute between Luis Antonio Morales, the plane?s pilot, and Aaliyah?s crew shortly before the plane took off.

The pilot is responsible for ensuring a plane is properly loaded.

"With nine people and all the camera and sound equipment they were loading, the pilot kept saying, "There's too much weight for a safe flight to Opa-locka," Key told the Post.

"He tried to convince them the plane was overloaded, but they insisted they had chartered the plane and they had to be in Miami Saturday night."

On the trip to the Bahamas, Aaliyah's crew also demanded Pro Freight Cargo Services, based at Opa-locka Airport, place nearly seven tons of video equipment on cargo planes - and immediately take off without a weight check.

"We got into argument with these people because they didn't want it weighed. They just wanted to load it on the planes and go," Eddie Golson, owner of Pro Freight, told the Sun-Sentinel.

"We told them we don?t do business like that and if it had to be done that quickly, they could take their business elsewhere," he said.

Aaliyah's representatives estimated their equipment weighed about 8,000 pounds, Golson said. His staff weighed it in at just under 14,000 pounds.

It included so many items, such as cameras, props and clothing trunks, that it had to be flown to the Bahamas on a DC-3 and a Cessna Caravan on Friday, followed by another DC-3 full of equipment on Saturday, Golson said.

Other sources also indicated the Cessna 402B might have taken off with too much weight on Saturday evening.

Gloria Knoles, an office manager for Abaco Air, a local airline that flies in the Bahamas and Florida, said she saw a pickup truck headed toward the plane with equipment and luggage that towered above the truck's sideboards.

"I thought, That"s a lot of stuff to be on a plane with nine passengers," she said.

Two Bahamian newspapers, The Tribune and The Freeport News, quoted a baggage handler as saying he had warned the pilot the plane was too heavy.

While being transported to the hospital after surviving the initial impact, Scotty Gallin, Aaliyah's bodyguard, kept saying there was too much "stuff" on the plane, according to WFOR-TV Ch-4, which interviewed two ambulance drivers, Andrew Pinder and Errol Thurston.

The drivers said Gallin, conscious and lucid, also kept asking about Aaliyah's condition. He later died of his injuries.

As part of the investigation, officials plan to take all the items from the plane and weigh them. The Cessna 402B has a maximum allowable weight of 6,300 pounds, of which about 1,650 pounds is permitted for passengers and baggage.

Federal investigators plan to inspect the engines to look for signs of malfunction.

Meanwhile, Russell said, several of the victims? family members flew to Nassau on Monday to help with identifications.

Among those were the parents of Morales, the pilot of the doomed plane, who lived in an apartment on Northeast 33rd Avenue in Fort Lauderdale.

Morales, in his early 30s, was quiet, clean-cut, always "sharply dressed" said neighbor Edward Fougere.

"I really can't say enough about him," Fougere said. "He was just a really nice, really well-mannered kind of guy. A real gentleman through and through."

Aaliyah, 22, who had just launched a film career, had amassed several hit singles, a platinum-selling album and had earned two Grammy nominations.

Initially, she and a group of about 20 people flew from Opa-locka Airport to the Bahamas on Thursday in two airplanes operated by Sky Limo, an air charter company based at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport.

Her video crew had wanted to finish up the shoot in time to depart the Bahamas by mid-day on Saturday. But the shoot went longer than expected, delayed in part by the late arrival of equipment.

Aaliyah and seven members of her entourage booked a return trip with Blackhawk International Airways Corp., which operated the Cessna 402B.

The twin-engine plane took off at about 6:30 p.m. on Saturday. A witness, Claude Sawyer, said he was alongside the runway when the plane started to plummet.

"It appeared to be a normal takeoff," Sawyer, 25, a pilot, said. "It departed and he rotated the nose and lifted off the ground."

"After that he pulled his landing gear up and then the plane veered slightly to the left and then it went toward the ground."

Blackhawk has been based at Lantana Airport in Palm Beach County for about a year. Before that, it had been based at Opa-locka for about nine years. It still uses that airport to pick up customers.

Blackhawk was cited at least twice by the Federal Aviation Administration, once for a flight operations infraction in March of 1998 and once for a maintenance problem in April 2000, records show.

In addition to the 402B, it also flies a Cessna 404 and is run by the father-son team of Gilbert and Erik Chacon.

Neither could be reached for comment on Monday. The unmarked hangar, on the southeast side of the Lantana airport, was locked up on Monday and no one answered the door.

Those who know the Chacons say they operate a reputable and dependable business. Athley Gamber, who runs Twin-Air, based in Fort Lauderdale, said she would refer customers to Blackhawk when her planes were full.

"It hurts all of us just as much to hear about something like this," she said.

Copyright © 2001, South Florida Sun-Sentinel